[Excruciating]

Estimated time: help me out here!
Difficult: help me again!
This tutorial will show you how to make your own planet (with a teture) with an atmosphere. First of all, you should make your own starfield, use this tutorial
if you want.

1. First step is to open your starfield image.

2. Now create a perfect circle (hold down shift while drawing) fill it with black (hit d, and then press alt + backspace). Call this layer, planet. Now go to blending options (right click the layer called planet, choose blending options) and set theese settings on:
Click on the image to view it at its original size

3. Now hold shift and click the planet layer (this should select your previous perfect circle). Now create a new layer (ctrl + shift + n) and call it stmosphere. Fill the selected circle with black.



Colors: Inner shadow: 248ee0 - Outer glow: 00f0ff

You should have something like this:

Click on the image to view it at its original size
4. As you see theres a light glow the hole planet. We don't want that so we're going to making a shade
So select the circle again (shift + click the planet layer) make a new layer (shift + ctrl + n) and call it shade, move this layer to the top. Fill it with black (alt + backspace). Now box blur (filter -> blur -> box blur) with an ammount of 40%. Now (still with the circle selected) transform your shade (ctrl + t) Move it around, scale, twist it untill it's coverig most of the planet like this:
Click on the image to view it at its original size

5. Almost done, we need to erase some of that shade so it blends with the rest of the planet. Select your eraser (E) and set the opacity to 100%. Select your circle again, press: ctrl + shift + i, and erase the part that's blocking our stars. The next part can be rather tricky, and I can't promise you, you'll get it right at first try. A good idea would be to save your image as .psp now, so if you'll fail, you can all ways open up your image and try again. Start erasing that's all I can say. Pressing the little eye, on your layers palette on the background, might help you out a little. When your done erasing the part that's blocking the stars, press ctrl + shift + i again, set the opacity to around 20% and earse some of the shade in the planet, so it will blend nicely.

Click on the image to view it at its original size
6.
Now, add a texture to the planet. I used this one:
Click on the image to view it at its original size

Make a new layer and add your texture so it fits the planet size, select the circle and go spherize it twice with 100% (filter -> disort -> spherize). Move your new layer to the bottom. And now, time for the "fun" part. Play around with the blending modes for your shade, planet, and atmosphere. You can alsp try dublicating your layers. Just play with it.
For this one:
Click on the image to view it at its original size
I used:
Shade: Linear light
Atmosphere: Screen
Planet: soft light
Texture: Normal

(OI hope I didn't make this to difficult)

[Phate]

very nice tutorial man!

[Excruciating]

Yeah, took a hour or something like that. Couldn't remember how I did it the first time, so took some time to figure that out.
And thanks a lot!!

[miss_prominent]

It looks great... I'll test it out some time when i have the time. It's a good tutorial.

[BaD SectoR]

good is good
u r good
good tutorial
thnx

[Excruciating]

Happy to help.. reminds I gotta keep theese space tutorials going, and I got holidays soon! Get ready for a christmas present!

[Hardkrawler]

Need a little help, can't find box blur...
Great tut, Thnx

[Excruciating]

I believe box blur is located in filter>blur>box blur
Sorry for the slow response..

[Kotik]

You rock my sock! Very impressive!

[Animataman]

when i find a cool texture how do i put it on the pic that im editing?

[Excruciating]

You either copy paste the image( ctrl + c for copy / ctrl + v for paste), or save it on your computer and then open it in photoshop.

And thanks Kotik

[Animataman]

i tried that, but where do i paste it? so i can use it

[Excruciating]

You create a new layer (ctrl + shit + n) and paste it in there. Then make sure to make it fit your planet by ctrl + clicking your planet layer (I think) and then hit shift + i to inverse, press delete, press ctrl + i again and do filter>spherize twice. Then move this layer to the bottom and continue the tutorial.